Speakers

Ann Aerts

Head, the Novartis Foundation

Ann Aerts is Head of the Novartis Foundation, an organization committed to transform the health of low-income populations, by leveraging the power of data, digital technology and artificial intelligence (AI) to reimagine health and care around the world. Ann holds a Degree in Medicine, a Masters in Public Health from the University of Leuven, Belgium, and a Degree in Tropical Medicine from the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium. Passionate about improving population health through data, digital and AI, Ann applies her relentless commitment to overcoming health inequities to pioneer solutions that can advance health and care globally. Ann chairs the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development Working Group on Digital and AI in Health and is a member of the International Advisory Board of the Commonwealth Centre for Digital Health. In 2018 Ann served as a member of the US National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine Committee on Improving the Quality of Health Care Globally and sits on the US National Academies of Medicine Commission on Healthy Longevity. Ann has authored numerous publications on digital health and innovative approaches and multisector partnerships to address global health challenges.

Hala Audi

CEO, The Trinity Challenge

Hala leads The Trinity Challenge as its first CEO. She brings to the Challenge her passion and expertise to improve health outcomes by looking for social, business and economic innovation to solve some of the most complex global health issues. She led the Review on AMR chaired by Jim O’Neill, commissioned by the UK Prime Minister and the Wellcome Trust in 2014. The Review helped to transform global awareness of the problem of drug resistance and increase fivefold the level of public and private investment for scientific research in the field. It produced micro and macro-economic modelling and policy proposals that are now being implemented nationally and discussed by key decision makers in the G7, the G20 and the UN. Hala’s twenty year career spans the law (Skadden) and government (HM Treasury in the UK), with expertise in international law, infrastructure, and complex programmes delivery.

Darren Back

Executive Director, The Pfizer Foundation

Rooted in his more than 20 years of global health and strategic healthcare experience, Darren is responsible for driving Pfizer’s enterprise strategy for global health and social impact to expand the company’s commitments to the most vulnerable people around the world. This includes expanding access to quality healthcare through health-related investments, setting and leading The Pfizer Foundation program and investment strategies as well as disaster and humanitarian response. An expert in public health, healthcare delivery and patient access, Darren frequently works with expert stakeholders in low-middle-income countries to identify innovative partnership opportunities and ensure that Pfizer and The Pfizer Foundation’s commitments are catalytic in addressing country-specific health needs. Darren is also a Board member of the Bay Area Global Health Alliance. * The Pfizer Foundation is a charitable organization established by Pfizer Inc. It is a separate legal entity from Pfizer Inc. with distinct legal restrictions.

Rakesh Bharania

Director of Humanitarian Impact Data, Salesforce.org

As Director of Humanitarian Impact Data, Rakesh is responsible for defining engagement with the humanitarian community, focusing on the principled, safe and ethical application of innovative technologies to accelerate humanitarian and development impact. He has spent more than 27 years in the humanitarian sector, focusing on the intersection of emerging technologies and international humanitarian crisis response and development. He is currently working as a strategist for the Salesforce.org response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of his past work includes responding to the September 11, 2001 attacks and Hurricane Katrina in the United States, the earthquakes in Haiti and Japan, Super Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, the Ebola response in West Africa, and the Syrian refugee crisis in Europe. Prior to Salesforce.org, Rakesh worked on the privacy engineering team at Apple, focused on EU GDPR compliance and related policy and engineering work, and at Cisco where he helped to create one of the earliest private sector humanitarian technology response teams.

Shivon Byamukama

Managing Director, Babyl Rwanda

Dr Shivon Byamukama is the Managing Director of Babyl Rwanda. Babyl is a subsidiary of Babylon, a global digital health care provider, whose mission is to put an accessible and affordable health service in the hands of everyone on earth. Prior to that, she was the Company Secretary and Head of Corporate Affairs at Bank of Kigali in charge of the Bank’s Legal Affairs, Investor Relations, Public Communications and Corporate Social Responsibility. Prior to joining Bank of Kigali, she was the Company Secretary and Chief Legal Officer for RwandAir, Rwanda’s national carrier. Shivon serves on several boards and is an Eisenhower Fellow- 2016. Shivon has a PhD from Glasgow Caledonian University Glasgow and a Bachelor of Laws Degree from Makerere University- Uganda.

Latanya Mapp Frett

President and CEO, Global Fund for Women

Previously, she was the Executive Director of Planned Parenthood Global, the international arm of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, with regional and country offices in Africa and Latin America. She quadrupled the size of the program in four years to become one of the most innovative and sustainable global health organizations in the field. Ms. Frett worked for eight years as a human rights officer for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and for 10 years with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Ms. Frett served as a delegate to the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 and continues to fight for the human rights of women.

Jennifer Gardy

Deputy Director, Surveillance, Data, and Epidemiology, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Dr. Jennifer Gardy joined the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Malaria team as Deputy Director, Surveillance, Data, and Epidemiology in February 2019. Before that, she spent ten years at the BC Centre for Disease Control and the University of British Columbia’s School of Population and Public Health, where she held the Canada Research Chair in Public Health Genomics. Her research focused on the use of genomics as a tool to understand pathogen transmission, and incorporated techniques drawn from genomics, bioinformatics, modelling, information visualization, and the social sciences. In 2018, Jennifer was named one of BC’s Most Influential Women in STEM by BC Business Magazine and was named one of the Government of Canada’s 20 Women of Impact in STEM. In addition to her science work, Jennifer is also an award-winning science communicator, hosting many episodes of science documentary television, including The Nature of Things and Daily Planet, as well as authoring science books for children, including a new book to be released in 2021.

Harmony Garges

Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Officer, ViiV Healthcare

Dr. Harmony P. Garges is the Chief Medical Officer at Viiv Healthcare, the only pharmaceutical company dedicated to HIV, and leads the Global Medical team. She is a physician with expertise in paediatric infectious diseases and spent nearly 20 years taking care of children living with HIV. During her 15 years in the pharmaceutical industry, she has developed or launched a dozen products across multiple therapy areas in both Pharma and Consumer Healthcare and worked in R&D, Pharmacovigilance and Medical Affairs. In her current role as Chief Medical Officer, Harmony is accountable for all aspects of human safety and medical governance for the company, along with the global medical affairs strategy and execution for ViiV Healthcare’s portfolio, including strategic planning for investigator-sponsored and collaborative studies, integrated evidence generation, medical communications strategy and external engagement. She completed her medical training and residency at Duke University Medical Center in the US, where she has also served as Consulting Faculty and Associate Professor. She also holds a Master of Public Health in Epidemiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Eric Goosby

Professor of Medicine, School of Medicine, UCSF

Eric Goosby, M.D., is an internationally recognized expert on infectious diseases, with a specialty in HIV/AIDS clinical care, research, and policy. In the Obama Administration, Dr. Goosby was appointed Ambassador-at-Large and implemented the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which significantly expanded under his tenure life-saving HIV treatment to millions in Sub Saharan Africa, SE Asia, and Eastern Europe. After serving as the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, he was appointed by the UN Secretary-General as the Special Envoy for TB, where he focused on the first-ever UN High-Level Meeting on TB in 2019. He is currently a Professor of Medicine at the UCSF School of Medicine and leading the Center for Global Health Delivery, Diplomacy and Economics, Institute for Global Health Sciences. A member of the Biden Covid-19 Advisory Board, a member of the Western States Scientific Safety Review Workgroup, and serves on the San Francisco Dept. of Public Health Policy Group for the COVID-19 Response.

Rajesh Gupta

Vice President, Global Health Portfolio and Public Private Partnerships, Vir Biotechnology

Rajesh Gupta is responsible for advancing a subset of the Company’s therapeutic and vaccine efforts aimed at addressing infectious diseases in resource-limited settings. He also leads Vir’s overall public-private partnership efforts. A physician-epidemiologist by training, Dr. Gupta has spent nearly 20 years in global health working at the intersection of product development, program implementation and health policy. Prior to entering the pharmaceutical industry, his experience spanned roles at the World Health Organization, Google.org, Partners in Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During his ongoing tenure within the pharmaceutical industry, he has helped lead the successful development of therapeutics targeting global infectious diseases and ensure such innovations reach patients around the world.

Kylie Holmes

Manager, Global Crisis and Disaster Response Programs, Facebook

Kylie Holmes leads policy and programmatic efforts across Facebook’s Crisis Response portfolio and serves as Facebook's public policy expert on disaster and conflict-affected countries. She also leads Facebook’s COVID-19 response program, which provides ad credits and marketing agency support to more than 130 ministries of health, WHO, UNICEF, and dozens of non-profit partners globally. Prior to joining Facebook, Kylie spent four years at the United States’ Mission to the United Nations, serving as humanitarian advisor to the U.S. ambassador to the UN. Kylie also spent six years responding to disasters and crises in the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America with USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance and with USAID’s Office of Food for Peace, where she established and managed the U.S. Government’s $1 billion food program for Syria and Syrian refugees in Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Egypt. Kylie has also worked in corporate partnerships and research roles at UNICEF USA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, and the U.S. Foreign Commercial Service.

Ben Hubbard

CEO and Co-Founder, Parsyl

Ben founded Parsyl to solve the quality challenges he encountered while moving billions of dollars of life saving products to every corner of the globe. Ben is a former senior Obama Administration official where he served as Chief of Staff at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and later as the director of USAID’s credit financing division, the Development Credit Authority. He has held leadership and program positions at leading global development organizations, including ONE and the Clinton Foundation.

Nmachi Jidenma

Strategy & Business Development Lead, WhatsApp Inc.

Nmachi Jidenma leads global strategy and business development at WhatsApp Inc, the world's leader in mobile messaging with over 2 billion monthly users. In this role, she leads strategic initiatives such as WhatsApp’s COVID-19 vaccine response partnerships to help vaccinate the world. Her team is partnering with key healthcare industry leaders to educate millions of people about vaccines, enable people to schedule their vaccine appointments and receive critical reminders on WhatsApp to get their required number of vaccine doses.

Nafisa Jiwani

Managing Director, Health Initiatives, International Development Finance Corporation, USA

Nafisa Jiwani is the Managing Director for Health Initiatives at the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), America’s development bank. As a Managing Director, Ms. Jiwani serves as a senior policy adviser for the agency, providing guidance and leadership on policy and transactional matters focused on Global Health. Additionally, Nafisa is spearheading DFC’s Health and Prosperity Initiative, which seeks to mobilize capital to strengthen health systems and improve resiliency in developing countries.

Abou Kampo

Director of Health, UNICEF

Dr. Aboubacar provides strategic leadership, management support and overall direction to UNICEF’s global health programme. With over 20 years of experience in development aid and humanitarian assistance, Dr. Kampo has worked as a physician/surgeon in hospitals and clinics in rural and urban areas in Africa and Asia and has over 14 years’ experience in senior management positions as Country Director, Senior Global Health Advisor, Chief of Health and Nutrition with International NGOs and United Nations’ Agencies. Dr. Kampo is a Medical Doctor and Public Health Specialist, passionate about using innovations to address real life community challenges and bridge the gap between communities and stakeholders.

Heidi Larson

Founding Director, Vaccine Confidence Project

Prof. Heidi J. Larson is an anthropologist and Director of The Vaccine Confidence Project (VCP); Professor of Anthropology, Risk and Decision Science, Dept. Infectious Disease Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine; Clinical Professor, Institute of Health Metrics & Evaluation, University of Washington; and Chatham House Centre on Global Health Security Fellow. Dr. Larson previously headed Global Immunisation Communication at UNICEF, chaired GAVI’s Advocacy Task Force, and served on the WHO SAGE Working Group on vaccine hesitancy. The VCP is a WHO Centre of Excellence on addressing Vaccine Hesitancy.

Jonna Mazet

Professor of Epidemiology and Disease Ecology, UC Davis One Health Institute, UC San Francisco Institute for Global Health Sciences

Jonna employs the One Health approach to understand and mitigate disease transmission among wildlife, domestic animals, and people, considering the ecological drivers of disease emergence. She is the Co-Director of USAID’s One Health Workforce – Next Generation, an educational strengthening project empowering professionals in Africa and Southeast Asia to address complex health threats. She is a member of the US National Academy of Medicine and serves on the NASEM’s Forum on Microbial Threats and One Health Action Collaborative. She was appointed to the National Academies Standing Committee on Emerging Infectious Diseases and 21st Century Health Threats, which was created to assist the federal government with critical science and policy issues related to the COVID-19 crisis and other emerging health threats.

Kennedy Mubaiwa

CEO, Higherlife Foundation

Dr. Kennedy Mubaiwa is the Chief Executive Officer at the Higherlife Foundation. Before being appointed in 2018, he served as a Trustee for Higherlife Foundation from 2008 – 2015 before serving as Senior Strategy Advisor to the Executive Chair of Higherlife in 2015. In the same year he was appointed to Director of Education in the foundation. As the Director of Education, Kennedy played a key role in the formulation of the Higherlife Foundations strategy and spearheaded many ground breaking initiatives such the revolutionary Ruzivo Smart Learning platform which is helping students across Zimbabwe access quality education.

Zachariah Ndegwa Muriuki

National Program Officer, Ministry of Health, Kenya

Zachariah is in charge of diabetes prevention and control activities. Zachariah Ndegwa has been involved in policy development and research in diabetes, led several initiatives focusing on diabetes education, capacity building of health care workers, development of national clinical guidelines for the management of diabetes and advocacy at the national level. He has also been involved in overseeing the running of several diabetes projects in Kenya, among them is the National Diabetes Project dubbed Mainstreaming and Expanding National Diabetes Comprehensive Care in Kenya. This project brought about a paradigm shift in diabetes prevention and control services in Kenya. Some of the successes of this project was development of data collection and reporting tools, uploading them in the DHIS2 and partnering with Medtronic LABS in digitization of the tools and rolling the digital tools in 3 counties in Kenya.

Sam Myers

Principal Research Scientist, Harvard School of Public Health and Founding Director, Planetary Health Alliance

Sam’s research explores the human health impacts of global environmental change. His projects currently include exploring the human nutritional consequences of rising concentrations of C02 in the atmosphere, falling populations of pollinating insects, and changes in global fisheries in response to ocean warming. As the Director of the Planetary Health Alliance, Sam oversees a multi-institutional effort (over 220 organizations in over 50 countries) focused on understanding and quantifying the human health impacts of disrupting Earth’s natural systems and translating that understanding into action globally. For his research, Dr. Myers was the inaugural recipient of the Arrell Global Food Innovation Award in 2018 and Prince Albert II of Monaco prize for research at the interface of health and environment in 2015. He is the co-editor with Howard Frumkin of Planetary Health: Protecting Nature to Protect Ourselves published in August 2020.

Diana Nakalema

Community Health Worker, Uganda

Diana is a government community worker and has been supported by Living Goods since 2016 to deliver basic health services in her community. She treats children below 5 years (for malaria, pneumonia, and diarrhea), offers family planning counselling, short term methods and referrals for long term methods. She also offers antenatal and postnatal care for mothers and immunization referrals for children. Since the onset of the pandemic, Diana has been sensitizing her community about COVID. She does all this with the help of the Smart Health app, a digital support tool that helps her to have all the information she needs on her fingertips. Community health worker Diana serves more than 300 households.

Ruth Ngechu

Deputy Country Director, Strategic Partnerships and Advocacy, Living Goods

Ruth is a skilled public health specialist with significant experience in providing leadership in the development, implementation and evaluation of integrated health programs. Having worked in various public and private sector roles, Ruth’s accumulated knowledge and networks have helped drive Living Goods’ innovative approaches, advocacy initiatives and strategic engagements. In her current role, Ruth provides overall leadership on country strategy, regional and global advocacy, and partner engagement. She is a doctoral candidate in Health Communications at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology and holds a Master’s of Science in Health Systems Management from Kenya Methodist University. She is an M&E Fellow.

Kennedy Okong'o

East Africa Director of Medical Credit Fund

As Director of East Africa for the Medical Credit Fund (MCF), part of PharmAccess Group, Kennedy oversees the operations and performance of MCF in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Kennedy joined MCF in January 2017 having worked as a banker for over 15 years in several banks including K-Rep Bank now Sidian, Equity Bank, United Bank of Africa, Chase Bank now SBM Bank, and Groupe BMCE Bank of Africa. He has vast experience in portfolio management, micro finance management, retail/SME lending, loan recovery and credit risk analysis.

Loyce Pace

President & Executive Director, Global Health Council; Member, President Biden's COVID-19 Advisory Board

Loyce Pace, a leader who has worked on the ground in more than 15 countries delivering health programs and mobilizing advocates, has served as Global Health Council’s (GHC) President and Executive Director since December 2016. Loyce comes to the role having held leadership positions in global policy and strategic partnerships at LIVESTRONG Foundation and American Cancer Society. Additionally, she has worked with Physicians for Human Rights and Catholic Relief Services. Over the course of her career, Loyce has championed policies for access to essential medicines, testified for congressional global health appropriations, and elevated the voices of people at the community level around various shared advocacy goals. She has been recognized by the Union for International Cancer Control as a Young Leader at their World Cancer Summit and has been an expert advisor in high-level forums hosted by World Health Organization, U.S. National Academy of Medicine, and other policymaking bodies. She is a highly sought after public speaker and frequently quoted in media regarding global health trends.

Andy Pattison

Digital Solutions Manager, World Health Organization

Over the last 25 years, Andy has held a range of leadership roles in the digital space, supporting innovation across both private and public sectors. As Head of Online at the World Wide Fund for Nature International (www.panda.org), he spearheaded the organization's first online fundraising campaign and developed its first web-based projects. While Head of Online at Credit Suisse Private Banking (www.credit-suisse.com), Andy designed the company’s accessibility standards allowing blind clients to use previously inaccessible online services. At the Union of European Football Associations (www.uefa.com), he was responsible for bringing football from the stadium to millions of mobile phones around the world through pioneering livestreamed events and developing UEFA's first mobile services. At WHO, Andy strives to amplify vital public health messages to more people through more channels. During the COVID-19 emergency, Andy has engaged the digital sector to support this mission and leads the Tech Task Force, a conglomerate of over 40 companies working to tackle misinformation, raise quality content and develop new digital channels. Through his work, WHO has been able to reach billions of people. Andy has also been the web lead for over 35 emergencies while at WHO, with deployments to the African Region to support both Ebola and Cholera outbreak.

Peter Piot

Director, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

He has a medical degree from the University of Ghent (1974), and a PhD in Microbiology from the University of Antwerp (1980). In 1976 he co-discovered the Ebola virus in Zaire while working at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium, and led research on HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases and women's health, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. He was the founding Executive Director of UNAIDS and Under Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1995 until 2008, and was an Associate Director of the Global Programme on AIDS of WHO. Under his leadership UNAIDS became the chief advocate for worldwide action against AIDS, also spearheading UN reform by bringing together 10 UN system organizations.

Inder Singh

Founder and CEO, Kinsa

Inder Singh is the founder and CEO of Kinsa, a public health company using digital technology to curb the spread of infectious illness. Aggregating population health insights from its network of smart thermometers, Kinsa has created an early warning system shown to predict the flu 12-20 weeks in advance, and shown to be an early indicator of COVID-19 outbreaks, predicting hotspots nearly 3 weeks before hospitalizations and deaths. Insights from Kinsa’s early warning system have been used by nearly every major news outlet, including the New York Times, CNBC, MSNBC, FOX News and CNN, among others. Prior to founding Kinsa, Inder served as the Executive Vice President of the Clinton Health Access Initiative. In this capacity, he worked with or advised the US’ President's Malaria Initiative (PMI) and PEPFAR programs, the UK's DFID, the Gates Foundation, and WHO's UNITAID program. He brokered a series of agreements between 70 developing countries and 20 pharmaceutical companies that lowered the price of medicines for AIDS, malaria and TB, enabling millions of children to access treatment and resulted in more than $1 billion in cost savings.

Anne Stake

Head of Strategy, Innovation & Technology, Medtronic LABS

As the Head of Strategy, Innovation, and Technology at Medtronic LABS, Anne is responsible for defining the strategic vision for the future of LABS as well as designing tech-enabled healthcare delivery models for underserved communities. Prior to LABS, she spent a decade working at the intersection of design, business model innovation and public policy, including roles at Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), The Ministry of Health in Rwanda, Idea Couture and IDEO. She brings experience designing alongside communities in Rwanda, Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, India and the US. Anne stays up at night thinking about how to apply world class service, technology and business design to improve health for underserved populations.

Pauline Williams

Senior Vice President Global Health R&D, GSK

A physician by training, she has spent over 25 years in drug discovery and development with a focus on clinical pharmacology and translational medicine. During this time, she instigated several open-innovation models of academic/industry collaboration. In her current role she leads a dedicated team of scientists and physicians working on innovative treatments for Malaria, TB and Kinetoplastid Diseases. She also founded the GSK Non-communicable Diseases Open Lab which provides support to African researchers to address the rising burden of NCDs in sub-Saharan Africa. In recognition of her contribution to maternal and neonatal health R&D, Pauline was named as a Save the Children Changemaker in 2019. Pauline is a Fellow of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine, a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and serves on the Council of the UK Medical Research Council. Pauline was awarded a CBE in December 2020 for services to medical research and development.

Moderators

Amruta Byatnal

Associate Editor, Devex

Amruta Byatnal is an Associate Editor at Devex based in New Delhi. She reports on global health, gender and human rights. Previously, she worked for News Deeply and The Hindu. She is a graduate of Cornell University where she studied international development.

Catherine Cheney

Senior Reporter, Devex

Catherine Cheney is a Senior Reporter for Devex. She covers the West Coast of the U.S., focusing on the role of technology, innovation, and philanthropy in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. And she frequently represents Devex as a speaker and moderator. Prior to joining Devex, Catherine earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Yale University, worked as a web producer for POLITICO and reporter for World Politics Review, and helped to launch NationSwell. Catherine has reported domestically and internationally for outlets including The Atlantic and the Washington Post. Outside of her own reporting, Catherine also supports other journalists to cover what is working, through her work with the Solutions Journalism Network.

Raj Kumar

President & Editor-in-Chief, Devex

Raj Kumar is a media leader and former humanitarian council chair for the World Economic Forum and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the author of the book "The Business of Changing the World," a go-to primer on the ideas, people, and technology disrupting the aid industry.

Adva Saldinger

Senior Reporter, Devex

Adva Saldinger is a Senior Reporter at Devex, where she covers the intersection of business and international development, as well as U.S. foreign aid policy. From partnerships to trade and social entrepreneurship to impact investing, Adva explores the role the private sector and private capital play in development. A journalist with more than 10 years of experience, she has worked at several newspapers in the U.S. and lived in both Ghana and South Africa.